Girl Fight

Chloe had her friend Lily over today. Chloe hasn't had a lot of individual playdates because of her hitting. She has gotten so much better! Lily has come over for a playdate twice now and she says she is coming back :).
I thought I would point out one major difference between boys & girls...Chloe and Lily had a sword fight today - just like the boys. That said, they didn't use pretend swords that make clanking sounds when you hit with them. They used pool noodles and laughed hysterically as they "fought" on the trampoline so no one would get hurt. Note baby lying behind the "sword fight".

At one point they were arguing intently about Chloe's baby Joe Joe. Lily would say, "He's my Joe Joe." Chloe, "No my Joe Joe." Lily, "NO MY JOE, JOE!" Chloe, "NO, MY JOE JOE!!!!!". It was music to my ears! Chloe was having a real conversation with her real friend on her real playdate! Praise God!!!

Sweet Success

On Thursday, I received an email from Chloe's teacher & her paraprofessional at school. They both told me that Chloe built a sugar cube tower of 7 cubes. That's good...go occupational therapy. But the great news, according to Miss Heather, (drum roll please), she DID NOT eat any of the sugar cubes! Woo hoo!

That's because they have....

As Quinn and I were playing outside in Oklahoma (while visiting family), he made a comment about how he wished I played with him more. I explained that I thought I did play with him a lot and that I play with him more than lots of moms I know (trying to make myself feel better). I named a few moms and he stopped me and said, "That's because they have..." He stopped short and wouldn't continue. I kept urging him to finish his sentence and he finally said, "That's because they have sisters & brothers that aren't special needs."
That hurt so much, so deep within me that I cannot describe the pain. Almost took my breath away. What should I have said? It is true. It is like we are raising two only children. They have to share their parents and their stuff but they don't play with each other, entertain each other, keep each other company.
I know this is the beginning of a long God-given journey. Some days I want to cry out, "It's not fair!!!!" Some days I do cry out, "It's not fair." Those are the words of my heart. The words of my mind are that God knows what he is doing. There is a greater purpose to our situation (and the situation of others like ours).
Sometimes I feel so inept.

Dis is good news!

Quinn has been in speech therapy for a couple years now (can you believe it?). Anyway, he has made and enormous amount of progress. That said, he still uses "d" for most of the beginning th sounds with an occasional "f" coming out too. So, this is dis, that is dat, three is free, birthday is birfday, etc. Well...he is now saying this, that, there, three, thirteen. He got marked down in preschool because it sound like he was saying twelve, fourteen, fourteen, fifteen. He was saying "firteen" for thirteen. In the last 3 weeks or so, he has started trying very hard to say "th" and he has been successful. He started The Listening Program in November! I sure hope it helps with s, sh, j & ch. I can say this...it won't hurt!

Joe and I are listening too. You aren't supposed to do anything that requires a lot of concentration while listening (like reading, video games, etc.). I broke the rules last night and played "brickbreaker" on my phone (loser, I know but Quinn has me hooked). I beat my highest score (which was already higher than Joe's)!! I rocked! Okay, so what if it was brickbreaker, just think what I could accomplish if I tried something important :)

Miss Jessica's Visit

Miss Jessica, a former teacher at My Gym and a family friend is visiting from Washington. She came last night and had a sleepover with Quinn in the tent (in the basement). That meant lots of reading of books. Today, Quinn and she spent the morning doing crafts in the craft room. Quinn is in heaven. All of this adult attention being sent his way. He is going to be very sad when it is time for her to leave.

Chloe calls Miss Jessica, "girl". "Mommy, is that girl awake?" "Watch me jump girl." It's quite cute and she can say Jessica when she tries. Jessica is amazed by Chloe's speech progress. She visited in September and has a video on her camera of us trying to get Chloe to say "sorry". One little word! Now, just 3.5 months later she can say sentences (okay, so they aren't perfect but she can definitely communicate). Remember, she started The Listening Program on October 6. What an answer to our prayers!

We are so glad (and surprised) that Jessica wanted to spend time in our chaotic but loving home! Now...we have to get Miss Emily (another former My Gym employee) to visit us - she just left the gym and we are so sad. Why do these girls have to graduate and get career jobs? Isn't acting like a 3 year old all day enough?

Monkeys

For a long time Chloe would say "Monkeys" when she got scared. She would run out of her room and into ours yelling, "monkeys". We couldn't figure it out. Still don't understand it - she's never had a bad experience with a monkey :). We don't know if she "sees" monkeys or if she just uses it for "scared." Tonight her and I had a real conversation about it.

She got a Curious George stuffed animal recently. She calls him, "Monkey". Tonight, after we finished praying Chloe said, "I afraid." I asked, "What are you afraid of?" She said, "Monkeys." I teased her and said, "I better take this monkey if you are afraid of monkeys." She said (holding tightly onto George), "Real monkeys scare me." After I picked myself up of her bedroom floor and regained my composure, I explained we didn't let monkeys into our house and that they live in the zoo.

I didn't know she knew "afraid" and "scared". I didn't know she could differentiate between "real" and "not real". At least, I didn't think she could explain it. As I write, I still cannot believe the conversation we had. We had a conversation and we are doing that all of the time now.

On New Year's Day, we were walking (the one day in a row I stuck to my New Year's resolution to exercise) and Chloe looked over at the mountains (remember, she was born in CO and she is almost 4) and said, "Mommy, there's mountains."

God is answering our prayers all of the time!

www.thelisteningprogram.com

The Listening Program

Chloe is starting her 10th album of "The Listening Program" this week. In May her biggest word was "Baboo". It had no meaning. It was like a baby saying gaga googoo. We knew she'd say Mommy & Daddy next because our speech therapist told us. She was right. It's a natural progression, it is just very delayed for Chloe. From May to October things didn't change much. In fact, at the end of July, Chloe had 39 words. The list included stuff like - hi, bye, mommy, daddy, no, poopoo. Pretty basic stuff.

On October 6th, Chloe started The Listening Program. We were huge skeptics! It cost over $700 and what could listening to this music do to help her??? We were so skeptical that we spent another $800 that we didn't have to go to the training for providers. We had to know more. We left our training in Denver in complete shock at the case studies we had seen (video) and read. The CEO of Advanced Brain Technologies actually conducted the training. It was so amazing that Quinn, Joe and I are all on the program.

It is now January 5 and Chloe is speaking in sentences. We had her IEP (school) recently and her speech therapist said her goal has changed from putting the final sound on words (she only said "ba" for bed, bird, blanket, etc. and "ta" for table, toy, town, etc.) to utterances of 5 or more.

Chloe is now speaking in sentences!!!! Her teachers send us notes almost every week saying that they are astonished by Chloe's language. Her speech therapists are amazed! Joe's mom visited for Thanksgiving and couldn't believe the improvement in Chloe's speech (she hadn't seen her since August). My parents visited for Christmas and my dad commented that Chloe's language is improving daily!

She asks "why?" at least 100 times a day now! Never thought something like that would make me so happy!!

Some other changes we have noticed...
Chloe isn't falling all of the time. There seems to be a real improvement in her balance.
She used to freak out if you tickled her softly or played with her hair. Now she is constantly saying, "Tickle me Mommy (or Daddy or Nanny or whoever's willing).
Brushing her teeth was one of the worst parts of our day! Joe and I would argue over who had to do it. It's not a problem anymore! She stands there with her mouth open almost as well as any other child.
Her relationships are improving. She doesn't hit as much as she used to (she still hits some). I think this has to do with improved ability to communicate.
She has also started to eat some meat - she ate a piece of turkey bacon the other day. Her first ever. Tonight she ate a piece of deli ham. It's progress.

The program has been used for so many things - Down Syndrome, Autism (lots of studies), auditory processing disorder, stroke patients and more. It has truly been a blessing in our lives!

If you want to know more, you can go to: www.thelisteningprogram.com.